


A House Divided

by Bodldops



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:43:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bodldops/pseuds/Bodldops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ward has said he works better alone, and Skye models her behavior after Ward's.  Really though, there's a reason Coulson keeps calling them a team, not a group of talented individuals.  Warning:  Spoilers ongoing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Warning signs

It starts in little ways, the way most avalanches do. 

At thirty-five thousand feet, their world becomes an insular place. Sure, with the magic of internet they can (and do) chat with their colleagues on the ground or in the Helicarrier, watch television or movies to decompress, or get caught up in the same stupid flash games that everyone else does. It's only them up there, though - there's only so many people to bump into in the hallways, only so many people's seats you can steal, only so many people to smile at or crack jokes with or share a snack with. If there's ever been a team-building exercise, this should be it - being stuck on the same plane (even an awesome one) for hours and hours on end, week after week, being forced to learn how to accommodate these five other people without losing your temper or your mind. They should be, if not the best of friends, at least well tolerant team-mates.

They're finally up in the air again after their somewhat disastrous second mission, and Ward is trying to get Skye to focus on the importance of training, of these seemingly-endless drills that he can remember hating so much when he started. She's flippant (more flippant that he was, he's sure of it), and the laboratory doors are open, so the answer seems easy.  
"Hey Simmons - what did your SO give you guys for morning drills?" She pauses in her work and smiles at him, bright smile that never seems to really hide the rattle of nerves behind it, and answers.

"Oh! Atomistic attribute drills. Yeah, um, name the mechanical, chemical, thermal,"

"Electrical attributes of materials..." Fitz added in, the two of them as comfortable sharing a sentence as they are sharing a lab space. Ward doesn't stop her when Skye interrupts the both of them to voice her boredom of the whole subject so she can get back to strength training.

"I think she could do some wonderful things in the computer espionage units." Leo notes as it becomes obvious that they've been shut out of the conversation. Jemma shrugs, turning back to the experiments she has running while shifting to the side to give Leo room to get back to his. 

"Yes, but she would have to really want to be there, their morning drills can be quite as difficult, or so I hear." The matter is dropped there, because while Skye seems to be more like them - a bit of a geek, a bit of an idealist, and just a bit flaily at the casual violence the field agents can dish out, she seems determined to be a field operative all the same. Her loss - somehow, atomistic attribute drills seem a lot more fun than punching bags.

Coulson is sure that once they've been given some time, the rifts are going to heal - they're all just too good at what they do to allow them to become problematic. May is sure she can knock sense into both sides before it can become a problem. No one else is experienced enough to even see the problem, which is almost worse. You can't fix something you can't see. 

When the rescue team returned from the fortress on Malta, Fitz and Simmons had practically hovered over them. They'd fussed and prodded, checking all of them for potential secondary problems from being exposed to fluctuating gravity forces. An oddly grim-faced Simmons had dragged Coulson off for a few minutes, and he'd looked somewhat embarrassed and she'd looked somewhat relieved when they came back, him shrugging his suit jacket back on while she'd asked plaintively if he could please stop hanging from ropes for the next few days. Ward had been the first to shrug off the combined fussing force of the science team, followed shortly by Skye, the both of them retreating to their respective bunks before either scientist could find something else to worry about. A few days later, and Simmons finally stopped finding new instruments to wave determinedly at any field agent that came too close.

The lights of main cabin of the ship may be dimmed to night-mode, but the lights of the laboratory are on full-blast. There's an excited, high-energy slew of babble coming from the team of scientists hard at work there as they examine their prize. They are talking over and under and around each other while working on the same schematic of the latest 0-8-4, side by side, in a full-scale scientific mad dervish of noise and movement. This is Fitz and Simmons at their most effective, and their most oblique to outsiders. Equations are used in shorthand to reference entire theories, nicknames for things that they've shared since undergraduate classes come out in common use, and they fail to really look at each other at all while moving comfortably in each other's space. 

They've long since passed the realm of it being very late in the evening, and are comfortably sailing through very very early morning, and aren't showing any signs of stopping. Coulson stopped to watch them for a while - after all, this is their baby until they make it to the Slingshot in eight or so hours, might as well make productive use of the time.

"Learning anything exciting?" He'd asked, knowing full well he wouldn't understand the answer without a transcript and a good week with a dictionary. He grinned that quiet, unassuming and utterly delighted grin of his at their tumultuous and dual-toned answer as they barely waited for one of them to finish before the other took the thread and ran off with it, as if this were some sort of intellectual race that someone out there just might beat them at. Eventually he went off to seek his own bed, since it was fairly obvious they weren't going to make any use of theirs. May was checking the audio and visual feeds from the lab now and then, if only to reassure herself that this time, no one was sneaking up on what were probably the two most idealistic agents in all of SHIELD. Sure, an attack was a technical impossibility at this point, but it let her relax more to see them flail at each other in what was to her utter geeky gibberish. At least they seemed to be having fun doing it. As a bonus, unlike some obsessed science geeks she could name, they didn't feel the need to blast Metallica when throwing themselves into a project, something her ears were very grateful for.

May did miss the moment that Skye stopped by the open laboratory doors. She missed Jemma's 'come in the universe is stuffed with awesome' grin, and Leo's stumbling attempt to hand over a set of gloves and goggles. She missed when Skye's expression of curiosity shut down into a wry smirk and a raised eyebrow, and the hacker wandered off.

She missed that Ward never came by the laboratory for any reason whatsoever. Once he'd seen that the 0-8-4 was securely on-board, he'd retreated to finish his paperwork and patch up a few minor scrapes before finding some place to crash with a book and a view of the ground passing far below.


	2. First Symptoms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May wants to know why suddenly she's the one calling patterns - that's never been her job, and she's not relishing it one bit.  
> Spoilers for S1:E4

She had thought that this would be a non-issue by now. Fitz and Simmons, inexperienced and naive and somewhat ridiculous as they were, had more than proved themselves in the last mission. May hadn't heard a word of complaint out of either of them after their van was attacked, even if their ability to stay calm under attack needed some work. A lot of work. It had been excruciating being on the comms in the bus, listening to the three most vulnerable members of their team attempt to regroup. She's not sure how Simmons had managed to turn on her headset in the chaos of the attack, though she suspects it was entirely by accident. Their voices came through loud and clear, a blessing and a curse - at least she knew they were alive, but then of course... so did their attacker.

"Jemma? Jemma, where-"

"Here, oh God, have we rolled down the embankment? Where-"

"The computer is... in pieces, you don't think she's still-"

"Out there? Should we look? Maybe we should look and-"

"Doesn't really matter if we stay inside or not, that was backscatter imaging, she can see us anyway-"

"There has to be some sort of device in her van, to be exposed to that much constant background radiation -"

"The increase would be only, what, point one microsieverts-"

"Much more than that, the scan lasted at least ten seconds, if not longer-"

"Still, a fraction of a normal CT scan-"

"This time, who knows how often it is used, or if she is wearing any shielding-"

"Are you _seriously_ worried about her future children?"

"There _are_ other medical risks, Skye, did you see a scoping or visual enhancement device? ... Skye?"

"Skye?" Leo echoed, and there'd been a worrying few seconds of silence before the hacker had answered groggily.

"That... really wasn't the safety." She had grumbled, and really, that girl was a hazard, how could she still be mixing the safety and the magazine catch? By then May had managed to get a hold of Coulson to send them scrambling back to the van.

It had been sobering, to say the least. Not one of their trio of field newbies had managed to muster much in the way of a defense, or even a coherent call for help. They had, however, managed to not go running off heedless into the woods, and none of them had ended up balled up in a corner. Instead, they re-focused on their work at impressive speed - Skye retreating to her hacker roots, Fitz and Simmons attempting to retro-engineer something that would have resulted in the visual feed they had picked up.

The only sign that the two scientists were rattled was how they seemed to become even more insular over the next few days - you never saw one without the other, usually within easy arm's reach of each other. Considering neither of them had anything beyond basic arms training (and what they knew of the weapons they designed, of course), this should be enough to prove themselves to even the most cynical field agent.

May, however, had not reckoned on Grant Ward. It wasn't that the man was unkind, or that he had it out for anyone, he just... never really thought about what came out of his mouth outside of a mission. Or even on a mission - James Bond this boy wasn't.

She'd walked in on Ward arguing with Coulson again, mostly about (again) how Ward felt he was being hampered by those who just weren't combat-ready. She wondered, just a bit, if he knew that when he said that, he was including her. She still didn't relish the thought of being in the field, of maiming and killing in the name of the cause. Somehow, she was pretty sure he didn't see it that way. He also failed to recognize (or failed to care either way) that in a space this small, voices carry. She'd seen the moment Ward had stalked off in a huff, nearly running down Simmons in the hallway. Ward gave no indication of seeing it, but May could see a new tension in Simmons' frame, a tightness to her smile that hadn't been there before, not quite so overtly.

She wasn't sure how no one else could see it... well, maybe Coulson is seeing it, but he isn't saying anything about it. The science team were working themselves into the ground trying to prove their worth. She'd lost count now how many times she's found one or the other them asleep at their desks, or pouring over papers or tablets in the very small hours of the morning. Fitz was perhaps more prone to this than Simmons - she suspected that Fitz would be doing some of this anyway, with a tendency to get tied up in his work to the exclusion of all else. Simmons, at least, had the distraction of her self-appointed duties of Fitz-wrangling, something else that May suspected originated long before joining this team.

Someone had to go to bat for that pair, and it looked like it would be her.

"We have to talk." She announced, lowly, making sure to close and latch the door to Coulson's office behind her, and avoid Ward's mistake.

"Ominous." Coulson noted, and she saw the strain around his eyes, the exhaustion he was trying to hide in the tension in the line of his shoulders. At least this time Coulson hadn't ended up hanging over some abyss. There's only so many times he could do that before the doctors at HQ would haul him forcibly back, even if Fury felt he owed a debt.

"Could be. Fitz and Simmons - they're going to get tired of being talked down to. They already are, to a certain degree." She watched as he tensed and relaxed - evidently he thought she was going to start in on the same vein as Ward there, for a moment.

"Give me a little credit."

"Sorry." He doesn't ask the stupid question of what she's protesting, which is actually a bit reassuring. At least he knows his mask is slipping a little. "It's been a long day. What do you suggest we do about it?"

"Closing doors before having a conversation would be a start." She pointed out dryly, and savored his wince of acknowledgement. "It'd help if he could develop a bit more tact - right now, he's making Stark look diplomatic."

"We have to work with what we have - they are all highly talented individuals, and they can learn a lot from each other."

"If they don't kill each other first." He nodded at her point, and sighed.

"We're heading for the Slingshot after the next mission, we need to restock and have maintance give the bus a good once-over. We can do something more... relaxed, then."

"... Group therapy?" She asked, dubiously. The science team would go, under protest. Skye would go under even more protest and promises to tweet everything unless all of her technology was taken away. Ward would need to be bound and gagged.

"I was thinking more of taking over the local bar, but the idea's the same."

"You do know Fitz will fall over if a pint looked at him funny." She pointed out, not relishing the idea of a completely soused engineer. He'd probably still be using ten-syllable words and awkward hand gestures, he'd just be doing it louder and with even less of a filter than normal.

"You might be surprised."


	3. The View from the Other Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's not saying they're not intelligent. He just truly, deeply wishes they'd go home.

He'd just like it to be known - he didn't hate the people on his new team. There's not a lot to hate there - Coulson and May are living legends, Skye is entirely too like him for hatred to be healthy and she seems honestly willing to work towards being a full-time agent, and the pair of scientists... well. You just don't see people taking that much joy in their work anymore.

He just wishes, devoutly, that Fitz and Simmons would go and do their work in a nice safe lab somewhere, with lots of guards and checkpoints between them (and their talents and the naivete and their heads full of S.H.I.E.L.D secrets) and the rest of the world. Give them a nice big lab space full of... whatever it is that those two need, and let them just... be. They shouldn't be in the field, where a good attitude and willingness to try gets you almost nowhere.

Ward retreated into the armory - he'd found, over the years, that the somewhat mindless and repetitive work of cleaning his gear helped settle him, and it'd keep him busy for a while. He had no idea what Coulson was thinking - the man was legendary, and the teams he had a hand in forming more so - hell, the man was rumored to have helped pick the Avengers. For the life of him though, Ward couldn't figure out how two bright-eyed and bushy-tailed scientists were supposed to be part of good field team. In his experience, the scientists were the people you sent stuff back to - eventually things would filter back in return in the form of better field supplies - from infiltration to medicine and everything in between. He'd never asked how they did it. Frankly, that much science being thrown around gave him a rash, and he'd never met a word over five syllables that he'd liked. For example, that first 0-8-4 they'd run across. Would it have been so hard to say something like 'don't touch that, it's emitting the stuff that made the Hulk!', or 'that device was made by the same people that brought you Red Skull!'? Simple, straight-forward, to the point. You didn't need a degree to know that stuff is probably something you want to stay well away from, and if you had to touch it, proceed with caution. He's not sure what could have been done differently, getting shot by rebels certainly wasn't in his list of things to do and never would be, but at least they all would have been on the same page.

And sure. Eventually, they'd find their feet, probably learn or be forced to learn how to use a gun, get some hand-to-hand combat skills. They'd toughen up, assuming they survived long enough.

That option almost isn't better. Then they might be alive, but they'd be... different. Scarred. He likes the idea of them being in a lab, babbling on at each other, completely unintelligible to people like him. He likes the idea of them being in a lab in a heavily fortified facility. He likes the idea that when they leave said building, there's enough security that the things they do wouldn't bleed out into their every day lives, and they can go do silly things on their own time and have normal lives. When they're in that lab, in that situation, they don't become... well. Him. Eventually they'll become wary. Fitz will stop suggesting 'adorable plucky monkey with his cunning monkey hands' as a viable infiltration scheme. Simmons will stop grinning like an kid on Christmas every time they find some piece of inexplicable tech. They won't be them anymore, and to him that's just as bad as all the other horrible options he throws at Coulson in an attempt to make the man see reason.

"Soooo. This what you do for fun?" Skye was leaning against the door-frame, arms crossed in a bit of a defensive gesture - probably unconscious on her part. She always seemed to get a bit worried when Coulson and May are having 'discussions'. He supposed that's not so odd, given what he knows about her history. 

"Proper maintenance of your equipment can save your life." He retorted, and then narrowed his eyes at her attempt to hide a giggle. "And it can help you figure out where exactly the safety catch is. Get in here."

"Look, I'm sorry, I was a little stressed at the time..."

"You'll be a little stressed every time." He cut off her somewhat useless excuses. It was a bit unjust, but after he'd been done being nearly beside himself with worry when Akaela had attacked the van, he'd been angry at Skye. She wasn't an agent yet, she didn't have a military background, but she'd been the one with the gun, protecting the two that had no defense at all. He'd managed to avoid lecturing her, but God help him if he was going to let that particular scenario play out again. 

When she sat down, he set a Sig in front of her wordlessly, and ignored her overly-dramatic sigh - she claimed to hate the dull repetition of breaking and reassembling firearms more than anything else.

Then again, she said that about everything having to do with training. 

"After this, do you want..." His hesitant attempt to do a better job connecting with Skye was interrupted by May's voice over the intercom.

"Landing in fifteen minutes, Coulson is buying first round at the bar in forty-five." 

 

Later that night, Coulson admitted that his plan was a bit of a wash. Fitz and Simmons were happily trading 'lab experiments gone wrong' stories with a few of the techs from the base, Skye was flirting with one of the flight crew, and Ward was playing darts with the base's resident sharp-shooter. 

May, as if sensing his thoughts, snorted her amusement before taking a drink of her whiskey as she sat beside him. 

"I really thought they'd be a bit more bonded by now." He admitted. The beer he'd ordered hours ago has long ago gone flat and warm - a horrible drink to match his mood. 

"You have one specialist who has been in the field solo for too long, two scientists who have been relying on each other for so long they've forgotten how to easily incorporate others, and a complete unknown with no training whatsoever and a disdain for most of our protocols." She replied, dryly.

"What about you?" 

"I wrote most of those protocols, I'm allowed to have disdain for them."

"Not what I meant." He pushed, and she gave him a side-long look.

"You were right - it is a great plane."

"Yes. Yes it is."


End file.
